1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to brushing apparatus including a motor vehicle provided with a raisable and lowerable tool-holder member and a brushing assembly which is easily demountably attached to the tool-holder and which includes a bucket demountably attached to the tool-holder and at least one powered brush which is mounted on the bucket in such a manner to brush material into or out of the bucket.
The invention further relates to a brushing method, which comprises the steps of arranging a frontward-opening bucket or container near a surface to be brushed and brushing in front of said container with a powered brush, in such a way as to throw the material being brushed-off the ground through the container opening, while supporting the brush and container together on a motor vehicle.
The invention may notably be applied during paving work, brushing operations in streets or over factory floors, etc.
2. Description of the Related Art
Known brushing apparatus and methods, relating to the brief description above are found in Belgian Pat. Nos. 899,230 and 902,003. Those patents describe a tractor vehicle provided with an implement which is used only for brushing a paving surface on which sand has been spread and tamped. That implement, which is not easy to handle, includes a collecting container and a revolving brush which are fixedly arranged relative to one another. Both the brush and container can have but two positions: a brushing position, and a hanging position wherein the container may be emptied. Guiding of the implement during the brushing operation can only occur by pulling. Finally, material particles being brushed upwards or sidewise can not reach the container, and may even soil the tractor vehicle or reach the driver thereof.
There has also been known for some time a movable vehicle which includes a tool-holder to which a toothless bucket may be hooked. By means of a bucket so hooked to the tool-holder as to be swingable relative thereto about a horizontal axis, it is possible to pick up grain-like material, for example sand, from a heap and to spread the sand over the ground by angling the bucket downward and forward in such a way that the front edge of the bucket lies short distance away from the ground, and the bucket contents flow gradually over the ground as the vehicle backs away. It is even possible to use the front bucket edge to try to level a previously-spread sand layer (see also in this respect the above-mentioned Belgian patents). It is not possible, however, to use such vehicles to obtain an absolutely uniform leveling of a thin, grain-like material layer over a ground surface, and because the apparatus being used is quite powerful, there may be a danger in using same, for example, to drive sand between paving-stones which have just been laid. Finally, it is known by means of the front edge of such a bucket, to scrape the ground before brushing same, such an operation being unavoidable when mud or moist sand covers that area to be cleaned.